Get your foreclosure reviewed for possible compensation

Homeowners who were in the foreclosure process in 2009 or 2010 and believe they were wronged by their lenders have until Dec. 31 to request reviews of their cases.

Borrowers could get compensation or other remedies such as a loan modification if reviewers find any issues, errors or financial harm caused by one of the participating banks.

Two U.S. agencies, the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, last spring required loan servicers, companies to which you send your mortgage payments, to carry out the foreclosure audits as part of agreements between government officials and the banks.

The point of the audits is to have independent reviewers find any problems in foreclosure cases in 2009 or 2010, when robo-signing ran rampant and the foreclosure crisis reached its peak. Robo-signing is the practice of approving mortgage documents with little or no review.

Borrowers who may have suffered financially due to servicer mistakes or issues could expect lump-sum payments from $500 to $125,000 with equity. The latter amount would only be given out to the most "egregious" of cases, based on a statement from both agencies. Other types of resolution include loan modifications, suspensions of foreclosure or corrections on credit-score reports.

The foreclosure review process, which is free, was opened up to more than 4 million people. However, a low response rate led regulators to extend the deadline three times.

About 8 percent of U.S. borrowers who received letters about the process, or 322,771, requested foreclosure reviews,
based on Dec. 6 figures from the Federal Reserve
. The response rate in San Diego County has been lower. Of the nearly 56,000 San Diego County borrowers who got the letters, about 5 percent asked for audits.

Issues plagued the foreclosure review process from the get-go. Borrowers who received the audit offers expressed fatigue from dealing with their lenders and wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Some thought the offers were scams. The program also failed to carefully plot out how the review letters would be sent out and by whom,
said a government report released in the summer
. In another instance, ads for the program ran in Parade magazine and other publications
with the wrong deadline
.

All of the costs associated with the foreclosure reviews are to be paid by the lenders. But no figures have been released to date.